Sir – Good news last month for those who believe that landscape damage from on-shore wind farms needs to be better recognised in decision making.

A district council in Norfolk refused a six-turbine wind farm, saying “the height and number of turbines and the movement of the turbine blades will constitute a substantial and discordant feature and will have a significant adverse impact upon the character and landscape quality of the surrounding area”.

Their decision was upheld by two planning inquiries and, in early April, by the High Court. Now, Cherwell district councillors have unanimously thrown out a very similar proposal near Fritwell.

The visual impact of a wind farm can affect over 750 square miles of countryside. Any alien structure 400 feet high would be damaging enough to the landscape, even if it stayed still. How much more so with a turbine waving its 120-ft arms about, positively demanding attention.

Renewable energy is of course produced, although only when the right kind of wind is blowing — not likely to be the majority of the time at a typical inland site.

Wind farms cannot exist without massive public subsidies, paid by all of us, both directly and through our electricity bills; and we still have to pay for the conventional power stations which are needed whenever the wind doesn’t happen to be blowing.

All this money could instead be spent on permanent and reliable — and invisible — greenhouse gas remedies like insulation. Planning permission must not be granted for wind farms which would permanently blight open countryside, as Cherwell’s councillors decided last week.

Michael Tyce, Campaign to Protect Rural England, Holton